remote sensing Article The Effectiveness of Large-Scale, High-Resolution Ground-Penetrating Radar Surveys and Trial Trenching for Archaeological Site Evaluations—A Comparative Study from Two Sites in Norway Lars Gustavsen 1 , Arne Anderson Stamnes 2,* , Silje Elisabeth Fretheim 2, Lars Erik Gjerpe 3 and Erich Nau 1 1 Department of Digital Archaeology, Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, Storgata 2, 0105 Oslo, Norway;
[email protected] (L.G.);
[email protected] (E.N.) 2 Department of Archaeology and Cultural History, The NTNU University Museum, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway;
[email protected] 3 Department of Archaeology, Museum of Cultural History, Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, Storgata 2, 0105 Oslo, Norway;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +47-7359-2134 Received: 2 April 2020; Accepted: 27 April 2020; Published: 29 April 2020 Abstract: The use of large-scale, high-resolution ground-penetrating radar surveys has increasingly become a part of Norwegian cultural heritage management as a complementary method to trial trenching surveys to detect and delineate archaeological sites. The aim of this article is to collect, interpret and compare large-scale, high-resolution ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey data with results from trial trenching and subsequent large-scale excavations, and to extract descriptive and spatial statistics on detection rates and precision for both evaluation methods. This, in turn, is used to assess the advantages and disadvantages of both conventional, intrusive methods and large-scale GPR surveys. Neither method proved to be flawless, and while the trial trenching had a better overall detection rate, organic and charcoal rich features were nearly just as easily detected by both methods.